Explanation
Only two books in the Bible start the same way - "In the beginning..."
People should be especially alert to this fact. This statement by God is so powerful and eternal that not even the Bad Bibles -- the Evil Four Plus One - can extinguish Creation by the Word.
Genesis 1 opens with the Holy Trinity - the Father commanding Creation, the Son executing His commands, the Holy Spirit conveying this truth to us.
John 1 teaches us that the Son is the Word of God, and He is named as God - I AM - in many sermons of the Fourth Gospel. The three-fold use of the Word in John 1 reflects the Triune God and the Three Persons.
KJV John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 The same was in the beginning with God.
3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
The English language, blessed by the KJV and Shakespeare, has given us a key to modern science. All living things are creatures - created - and not evolutes - evolved through dank and complex accidents developed in perfect harmony over billions of years.
Creation itself is proof of the efficacy of the Word. In my study of Judaism during seminary and Yale Divinity School, I learned that rabbis considered the Word to be God's powerful Word in every possible way. There are many rabbinical stories that illustrate this power.
Calvinists treat the Scriptures as dead letter. The preacher or teacher must make the Bible appealing and reasonable. For them, the Scriptures are like a garden statue, pointing the way, nothing more. That is why the Calvinism of Stephan/Walther has turned into rationalism and Universalism in WELS, Missouri, the CLC (sic), and ELCA. Seminex was widely scattered in the Lutheran groups, like the flu, among pastors and congregations who bowed to Tietjen. A surprising number of ELCA bishops were first in Seminex, crawling out of the Slough of Despond to infect more people.
Roman Catholics worship and obey the Pope's commands, which are always contrary to the Gospel. That makes the Smells and Belles of high church Lutheranism so appealing to those wearing papal costumes.
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| Those who pretend to love the Book of Concord also fake a knowledge of Martin Chemnitz. The Formula of Concord, 1580, leaves them in the dust. |
